As the political air hangs heavy with uncertainty about whether the U.S. or Israel might launch an attack against the nuclear facilities of Iran—a nation whose president has pledged to “wipe off this disgraceful blot [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world”—the American “peace” movement is once again doing what it was born to do: condemn the United States and Israel while giving a free pass to the genocidal murderers who seek to annihilate both nations. One of the most noteworthy recent newcomers to this movement is Chicago Mass Action (CMA), an activist group that engages in street demonstrations protesting America’s alleged racism, imperialism, and fascism.

Currently, CMA is busy circulating a petition exhorting members of the American and Israeli armed forces to disobey their commanders if ordered to attack Iran—an attack that, according to CMA, would “violate morality, international and domestic law, and the interests of humanity.” By contrast, CMA asks nothing of Tehran, save its patient forbearance in the face of provocations from the Great Satan and the Little Satan. As CMA puts it, the United States is nothing more or less than “the world’s greatest terrorist,” a nation whose “bloody hands” give testimony to the many “reckless military assaults” it has launched throughout its history. Contending that America’s “unending” wars are “only for the benefit of the super-rich who want to expand the U.S. empire and get control over other peoples’ resources, markets, labor power and strategic locations,” CMA pontificates that “the U.S. has no right to prowl around the world, looking for opportunities to gain control of more countries.”

Earlier this month, CMA staged a rally in Chicago demanding that the U.S. refrain from punishing Iran in any way whatsoever—especially with economic sanctions or military measures—for its continued development of a nuclear-technology program. Local endorsers of the rally included such champions of “peace” as ANSWER (a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party); World Can’t Wait (founded by a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party); Code Pink (founded by a lifelong pro-Castro socialist); and Peace Action (an outgrowth of a Soviet-sponsored initiative of the 1980s that sought to permanently freeze the USSR’s nuclear and military superiority in place). Satellite rallies were also held in more than 20 cities across the United States, Ireland, Canada, and elsewhere.

Further, Chicago Mass Action impugns America’s “unlawful” establishment of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, where, according to CMA, prisoners are routinely tortured. A key ally in this anti-Guantanamo campaign is the Catholic Worker Movement, which, lo and behold, advocates U.S. disarmament and derides capitalism as an irredeemably unjust economic system that sows “spiritual destitution” into America’s cultural soil.

The next target in CMA’s crosshairs will be a major gathering of military and financial leaders from around the world, scheduled for May 19-22 in Chicago. Specifically, the conference will consist of representatives from NATO (which CMA disparages as a “U.S.-commanded and largely U.S.-financed” alliance), along with political leaders and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers. CMA and its usual allies plan to stage a massive May 19 protest against this event, simultaneously railing against the two things which the Left hates most: the U.S. military and the unequal distribution of wealth across the globe. While the stated purpose of the protest is to advance the cause of “peace” and “economic justice,” the real objective is to do precisely what all leftist rallies spearheaded by communists are designed to do: thoroughly discredit America, its culture, and its economic system—in hopes of fomenting enough popular discontent to advance the journey toward a new socialist paradise.